Cleaning a toilet bowl is generally a difficult and unappealing task. Many of the stains and grime which build up in a toilet bowl are difficult to remove, and most people are reluctant to get their hands down into the toilet bowl. The job is complicated by the fact that the lower half of the bowl is under water.
To get around many of these problems, it has become common to clean a toilet bowl by adding some sort of cleaning agent to the toilet bowl water, allowing the cleaning agent and water mixture to stand for a period of time and then scrubbing the toilet bowl with some sort of brush or scrubbing pad.
Unfortunately, this method cannot be applied to that portion of the toilet bowl above the level of the water. Accordingly, it is still necessary to clean this portion of the bowl by hand.
Cleaning under the upper edge of the bowl is especially difficult because stains and grime in this area cannot be seen without a mirror and because the circular configuration of the rim makes scrubbing an awkward activity. If this area is not regularly cleaned, however, germs and bacteria will accumulate. This may become a health hazard and/or a source of undesirable odors. Also, if this area is not cleaned regularly, the flushing holes, essential for the efficient operation of the toilet, may become obstructed by mineral deposits.
There have been a couple of suggestions in the prior art for methods to fill the bowl with water during the cleaning operation to allow for a prolonged soaking of the upper portions of the bowl with a cleaning agent. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,480,021 (issued to Ewald, Jr., Jan. 18, 1968) teaches the use of a bulb-like stopper on a handle. The stopper is used to plug the drain of the toilet to allow the water within the bowl to rise. The handle has a small overflow port which purportedly keeps the bowl from overflowing during flushing. Also, in U.S. Pat. No. 3,839,744 (issued to Ziegelmeyer, et al., Oct. 8, 1974) teaches a similar method for causing the water in the toilet bowl to rise. Ziegelmeyer, et al., teach the use of a disc-like stopper on a handle to plug the toilet bowl drain. The handle provides an overflow device for preventing water in the bowl from overflowing during flushing.
Neither of these methods has been found to be fully satisfactory, however. Both methods require careful adjustments of the overflow device to attain the desired water elevation. Both methods also rely on the hollow handle of the tool to carry away excess water to prevent the bowl from overflowing, but in neither case is the handle sized sufficiently large to carry away the tremendous amount of water which would rush into the toilet during a flushing operation. Furthermore, the Ziegelmeyer, et al. method does not provide a method for cleaning under the rim of the toilet.
Accordingly, there is a need for a better method of cleaning a toilet bowl, especially for cleaning under the rim of a toilet bowl. The method should be inexpensive and simple to apply without posing any significant danger of overflowing the toilet bowl.